Corporate Advocacy Program: The best way to manage and repair your business reputation. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Consumers want to see how businesses take care of business. All businesses will get complaints. How those businesses take care of those complaints is what separates good businesses from bad businesses.

I warn everyone about this establishment - not because of the concept of the boat club, but purely because of this franchise's Owner. We had problem after problem with the boats - some minor - like radio not working, broken windlass, engines not running well, etc. to major issues - Broken AC in the middle of the summer with my elderly parents on one of the yachts, etc. - How they (Chris - the Owner) handles the issues makes it 10 times worse. We had a yacht reserved for our Christmas holiday - 2 days before our 3-night reservation we got the call that our yacht had been damaged and they didn't have a boat for us and the other couple we were traveling with.

Instead of being apologetic and offering some kind of concession for our Christmas plans being ruined, he was argumentative, used foul language, and when we said all we expected him to do was be a good business person and offer something (maybe a free month or two of membership) for our inconvenience, he said "I don't give a f*%K about being a good business person". Really??? I was in shock! He even threatened my husband when we asked to come in and sit with him to discuss the situation and our membership options at that time, as we were unhappy. His response to that request was "Don't come in here with any kind of attitude, because it won't end well for you. Your options are that you can cancel your membership at any time", of course losing the thousands of dollars we paid to join less than a year prior.

I even tried emailing him to come to a resolution to our dissatisfaction and all he would do was respond with excerpts from the contract..."proving" that he was not obligated under any circumstances to offer any kind of concession to a member....for ANYTHING.

Beware....the Freedom Boat club is great in concept, and I am sure that the company-owned locations are very professional and care about their Members, but watch out for this location....don't be fooled like we were with all of the shiny bells and whistles of the "best fleet". That might be the case, but when something doesn't go right (and it will happen) don't expect anything but grief from them. All they care about is getting your up front money - not keeping you happy members.

We also tried a few times to get access to vessels at other locations throughout the US - Never had any luck with that either. We had high hopes for this as a great boating solution, but were severely disappointed.

Corporate Advocacy Program: The best way to manage and repair your business reputation. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Consumers want to see how businesses take care of business. All businesses will get complaints. How those businesses take care of those complaints is what separates good businesses from bad businesses.

AUTHOR: Dave Gammon - ()

SUBMITTED: Saturday, July 05, 2014

POSTED: Saturday, July 05, 2014

Hello CJ,

I'm am so sorry to read about your experience with the former Freedom Boat Club, now operating as the Palm Beach Boat Club.

My name is Dave Gammon and along with my partner Dan Lund, we are the new owners of the Freedom Boat Club in Palm Beach County. We recently (March 2014) opened in the Lake Park Marina. Knowing the poor reputation the former Freedom Boat Club & Mr Anders had/have, we knew our work was cut out for us repairing the damage done to the reputation of boat clubs in our area.

In that regard, we opened our club based on a completely different business model. One centered on our members receiving an exceptional experience each time they reserve a boat. We offer a brand new fleet of cleaned, maintained and available boats, an online reservation system, an industry low 10 members to 1 boat ratio, a beautiful, safe marina with parking adjacent to our slips, a professional, courteous staff that greets you and your guests at your car to help load your gear, and an atmosphere unlike anything you unfortunately experienced. Plus reciprocal access to almost 80 Freedom Boat Club locales throughout the country.

If you would be willing to try again, I can promise that you will not be disappointed. Come visit us. Our club is nothing like the facility you have experienced. I would be happy to show you around and even happy to let you talk with any of our members about our club. We also have several former Palm Beach Boat Club members that would be happy to talk with you about the differences between our two clubs.

Corporate Advocacy Program: The best way to manage and repair your business reputation. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Consumers want to see how businesses take care of business. All businesses will get complaints. How those businesses take care of those complaints is what separates good businesses from bad businesses.